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Homebuilt Planter For Caterpillar
When I sold my conventional tractors and bought a pair of Caterpillar Challenger 65 rubber-tracked tractors seven years ago, I used a 16-row 30-in. Kinze pull-type planter at first. Two years ago I built a 3-pt., 13-row planter with two 38-in. wide skip rows to accommodate the Challenger's 28-in. wide tracks. The singl
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Homebuilt Planter For Caterpillar PLANTERS Planters 19-4-37 When I sold my conventional tractors and bought a pair of Caterpillar Challenger 65 rubber-tracked tractors seven years ago, I used a 16-row 30-in. Kinze pull-type planter at first. Two years ago I built a 3-pt., 13-row planter with two 38-in. wide skip rows to accommodate the Challenger's 28-in. wide tracks. The single toolbar planter has three 24-in. rows in the middle with five 24-in. spaced rows on each side.
The skip rows allow us to come back and sidedress anhydrous ammonia, which is important because our soil is often too wet in the spring to apply ammonia without losing a lot of it. By sidedressing we don't lose as much nitrogen and we get it to the crop when it needs it. We set the applicator knives to go 10 to 12 in. deep to help break up any soil compaction. The Challenger's 28-in. wide tracks clear crop rows by 5 in., which is adequate even when sidedressing. We set the ammonia applicator so that two knives run in each skip row. The 3-pt. mounted planter turns better than a pull-type planter and also works better in soft ground conditions.
The planter's rigid toolbar doesn't fold or flex, but our land is fairly level and we don't have to go on the road much so it's no problem. The planter is ground-driven by a rubber drive wheel mounted in front of each end of the planter. The drive wheels ride on springs so the planter doesn't skip, even on uneven ground.
We use a Deere 750 no-till drill to plant soybeans and a Challenger 85 to do tillage work.
I salvaged row units off an old Kinze planter and mounted them on a 7 by 7, 1/ 2-in. thick toolbar. The toolbar is also used to carry two 200-gal. tanks of liquid fertilizer. We modified the corn heads on our Deere 9600 combines to come up with 13-row heads that match the planter's row spacings. The skip rows make it easy to harvest because we don't have to count rows when we turn at the end of the field.
(David Steritz, 3970 Roush Rd., Hillsboro, Ohio 45133 ph 513 288-2343)
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